


On The Front Lines

by FallenStarOf96



Category: Naruto
Genre: AU, F/M, World War I
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-24 08:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 15,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2574332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallenStarOf96/pseuds/FallenStarOf96
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naruto World War I AU. Shikamaru is among the young soldier fighting in the trenches and when he is injured he meets Temari, a nurse who volunteered in hopes of finding her brother, who was MIA.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wounded

**Author's Note:**

> These characters do not belong to me.

 Trench warfare was brutal on everyone; it was just as hard to watch it as it was to fight in it. Temari was only twenty years old, and despite her recent start as a battlefield nurse she had managed to join the more experienced nurses stationed just behind the first few lines of fighting. She had seen too many men, most her age or younger come through the nurses’ station, all bloodied and fighting for their lives. She admired the bravery in these men, but all the death and destruction was starting to wear her down.

Last week had been Christmas and both sides had stopped their individual bombardments in honor of the holiday. That night she’d treated a few of the less serious cases, and had enjoyed their lightheartedness, the joy the holiday had brought them. The one boy was only 18, his friend only a year older, and was trying to get some treatment for a bad case of trench foot that had been festering for some time. Naruto, was his name, seemed like a real jokester. With that shaggy blond hair and his blue eyes he was probably very handsome, of course she couldn’t tell with the dirt caked in his hair and the dried mixture of blood and mud splashed across his face. He dominated the conversation, jokingly flirting with her and talking with his friend. Now his friend, Shikamaru, he was very handsome even with the blood and dirt that seemed permanently stuck on all the men. He had longer brown hair, pulled into a ponytail, and his narrowed brown eyes made him seem a little mysterious. He was much quieter, she barely heard him speak the entire time he was there, merely nodding along with his friends ramblings. The only time she saw any emotion on his face was right before they left, Naruto was shifting his gaze between her and Shikamaru, speaking in a low voice to his friend. Whatever he said made Shikamaru blush deeply and make a panicked face, for about half a second.

Even now, two days later, she was still thinking about him, wondering what his story was. The cease-fire didn’t last long, just enough time to almost forget what the constant bombardment sounded like, almost enough time to delude her into believing the war could soon be over. But it began again, the morning after was once again filled with the thundering of bombs going off and shell casing thudding against the ground. And everyone was back to work, she didn’t see the two boys again for the entire week, only tending to those in danger of dying or losing a limb, and here, that was everyone. If a bullet or a bomb didn’t get them the shards of shrapnel would snag them and infection would soon follow, delivering the final blow. Too often men were killed by losing a limb to trench foot or infection, or just getting sick from one of the many diseases filtering through the different camps.

It had been a week since Christmas and everyone was back into their rhythm of work. Temari had just gotten in from breakfast, dark circles under her eyes showed just how little sleep she’d been getting recently. She was only in the medical tent for about twenty minutes when she heard an explosion. Now this was nothing new, explosions went off all the time, but this was too close for comfort. It was only a few lines ahead of the med tend, Temari and the other nurses had stopped to listen to the yells coming from men rushing around the explosion. While the other nurses returned to their work Temari was stuck listening to the yelling as it got closer and closer, someone had been hurt, and hurt seriously for them to be moving as quickly as they were.

By the time the men reached the tent Temari was first to get to them. There were two men standing there, and they were carrying another man. The panic in their faces told her that they were friends of the unconscious man and she hastily led them to a mat where they could lay their friend down. The two tried to stay in the tent but other nurses were quickly shooing them out. Temari thought they left and was surprised to see a familiar face in her peripheral vision. It was the same blond boy who she’d treated a week earlier; he was looking directly at her, the joking boy nowhere to be found.

“Help him,” he said, staring at her with an intensity that was almost uncomfortable, “I promised him we’d get back home together, and I NEVER break a promise.” His reasoning would have seemed silly if it hadn’t been accompanied by the obvious fear and determination in the boy’s eyes. She nodded to him, silently making a promise of her own. Satisfied, he left the tent.

Temari returned her gaze to the boy, no man, on the mat below her. She never would have recognized him as the same boy as before. He was ghostly white, his breathing shallow, and a mask of pain stretched tight over his face. Under further examination she noticed the large gashes in his arms, shrapnel from the explosion, and from the bleeding she thought there might be a larger piece in his abdomen, and his one leg looked either broken or severely fractured. He was still bleeding, and he could easily contract a virus. He was in really bad shape.

She began working, rubbing disinfectant on his arms, trying to scrub off the layer of dirt and grime. When she thought she could get no more off she wrapped them in bandages, keeping pressure on them to slow and hopefully stop the bleeding. That was a big problem here, the poor nutrition of the soldiers was making it harder for blood to clot. After that she moved to his leg, cutting off the pants so she could work. He was still unconscious so she couldn’t tell what hurt when she touched his leg. Deciding not to chance it she bandaged up his leg tight and put a splint on to keep him from bending his possibly injured knee. Now the hard part, she removed his jacket and cut off the torn up shirt, exposing his bare, scarred skin.

She hadn’t seen many wounds like this and she leaned over and began testing the wound, a soft groan came from above her head, signaling her worst fear. He was starting to come to, and with his wound exposed he could easily succumb to shock and his already bad condition could deteriorate quickly. She had to act fast, glancing up she saw his face contort in pain as she began pulling shards of shrapnel out of the wound in his abdomen. She glanced up every few seconds, as pieces of shrapnel clattered into the small bowl at her side as she pulled them out. She could tell he was now conscious, his eyes open.

But he was smart, he knew not to look at his wound, instead he alternated between staring at the pinched ceiling of the tent and the face of their young woman so focused on her task. He found himself spending more time staring at her as the constant metallic clicking droned on.

For a battlefield nurse she was strikingly beautiful, to him anyway. Her golden blonde hair had been pulled into a tight bun, he watched as small stands pulled out of the bun while she worked. The strands curled against her hairline, only to be brushed back when she wiped the sweat off of her brow. Her eyes were so green, reminiscent of the forests surrounding his home. She would glance up at him every few seconds, and when their eyes met they’d both look away quickly.

Shikamaru didn’t know how long he’d been in the med tent, hell he didn’t remember how he got here. All he could think of was the explosion. The other side had made a push against the front lines, while he wasn’t on the front line he and his fellow soldiers were prepared for a fight, Naruto manning the machine gun and Kiba rushing off to get more ammunition sent to the front line. Shikamaru was spotting Naruto, though he was lighting his cigarette. He was distracted when he dropped the lighter and he was bent over picking it up when a grenade was thrown over the trench wall and exploded. It wasn’t as close as it seemed but the blast pushed him back, slamming his head against the machine gun behind him, knocking him out. That was all he could remember, besides the pounding in his head and the searing heat of hot metal slicing up his body.

He didn’t remember closing his eyes but when he noticed the sudden disappearance of the nurse’s body heat he struggled to open his heavy eyelids. She was standing on the other side of the tent. Shikamaru didn’t want to risk looking at his wound so he watched her. She dumped the metal shards into the medical waste bin, threw the tweezers she’d been using in the sink, rinsed her hands, and then bent over to grab a towel and some gauze, most likely to wrap his wound. His eyes glazed over at the sight of her bent over like that. Her rear was tight and perfectly encased in that nurse uniform. This only opened the door to endless fantasies about the woman in front of him, ones where he pushed her up against the trench wall and ripped her uniform off her, and others when he gently explored the wonders of her body.

“Troublesome woman.” He muttered under his breath, shaking his head to dismiss the naughty thoughts, while simultaneously trying to think of anything that would stop the rush of blood making its way downwards.

“What was that?” Temari said, her hips swaying unconsciously as she walked over towards the young soldier. She had gauze in one hand and disinfectant in the other. She knelt down next to the boy, still waiting for his answer. “Well?”

“Oh it’s just – well – this is a bit,” he struggled under her gaze, “troublesome.” He finished, settling on a half-truth.

Temari cracked a small smile at this and began pouring disinfectant onto his wound. He jumped a bit at the cool liquid and cringed when it began to sting lightly.

“I’m almost done, just need to bandage you up and then you’ll stay here for the next day until we determine if there is any other trauma.” She said sweetly, looking at him from her place, kneeling at his side.

He nodded, suddenly affected by the feel of her hands flitting across his bare skin. She noticed his flinching and assumed the area she was wrapping was just tender. She finished up and sat back on her heels.

“All done.” She told him, giving him a smile as she moved to get up.

“Wait!” he said, a bit panicked. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down. He released her wrist only to cup her face with his hand while he stared into her eyes. “Thank you.”


	2. The Start of Something

Illness and disease spread quickly among the wounded soldier, hospitals were almost always a death sentence and everyone knew it. Shikamaru knew he had to play this right or else he’d wind up there, he’d be in excruciating pain and would probably never heal right, but spending the last three months of his tour in pain was a better option than slowly wasting away with a seventy-five percent chance of dying in whatever makeshift ‘hospital’ they’d send him too. But first he’d have to convince the pretty blonde that had treated him, she was the only nurse who saw his wounds first hand and she’d be the one to decide his fate.   
Four days later Shikamaru wasn’t much better than when he was first brought it, the only real change was his consistent consciousness, and that was only to help his argument later on. The normally lazy Shikamaru would have enjoyed all the down time, all the free time to sleep.   
He couldn’t sleep, but he could people watch, which was a bit like the cloud watching he’d done at home; instead of lazy floating clouds he was watching a small group of nurses flit from person to person in the large medic tent at alarming speeds, usually carrying some sort of blood-soaked cloth or a dirty needle. He was patiently waiting for two nurses to run into each other, while the tent was large it was also crammed full, but that never happened. The nurses worked with ease, synchronized with each other.  
He didn’t get much attention from the nurses; one would come over every so often to ask if he needed anything and would be gone again before he could answer. The only one he’d really talked to in the past forty-eight hours was the blonde who’d treated him initially, Temari. She was the same girl that had treated Naruto’s pesky trench foot infection. They’d talked quietly over their rationed breakfast in the wee hours of the morning. He didn’t know why she insisted they be quite, the bombs and yells of soldiers continued endlessly. If he remembered right his unit was on the bad shift this week, they’d relieved other soldier the day he’d been injured and they would remain in that position for the entirety of the week, the artillery had to be manned at all times, day or night. He really wasn’t missing that.  
He could see outside the tent that the sun was setting. While battle never ceased, it was lessened at night, unless one side decided to try and push forward. If Shikamaru was sure of anything, it was that the soldiers on the other side of no man’s land were just as tired and fed up with fighting as the soldier on this side. The war, he hoped, couldn’t go on much longer, moral was so low and desertion rates were getting higher, though generals tried to keep that news quiet.   
The nurses were slowing down now, serving dinner to those who couldn’t feed themselves. The caravan would be there tomorrow, to drop off supplies and take the badly injured to the hospital, farther away from the front lines. He had to convince Temari that he wasn’t critically injured.   
By the time it was dark outside the tent, all the lanterns lit and glowing, Temari was just delivering his food. The two began eating, chatting like old friends over the dried jerky meat and hardened, stale strip of bread.  
“So soldier boy, tell me about home.” She teased him, well aware that he was at least two years younger than her. She’d told him of her home the first night, he’d been half-awake and unwilling to do much other than grunt and stare off into the distance. She told him how the arid deserts of Texas were mostly dry heat, smoldering heat that burnt nearly everything to a crisp. She’d even told him about her brothers, Kankuro and Garra. Kankuro had been in the first groups of drafted soldiers from Texas, she hadn’t heard anything from him in a long time and she was very worried. Garra on the other hand, was now the only one left to take care of the farm, and thus was saved from the draft. Their mother had died years ago and their father had been sick for some time, he’d finally succumbed to the illness two months ago. She worried about Garra, he’d always been a solitary soul but being on the large property will no one else for miles around was bound to warp something inside him if she or Kankuro didn’t get home soon.   
“Well,” Shikamaru began, bringing the blonde’s blue-green eyes back into focus. “Naruto and I, and a few other guys, we grew up together in Maine, up real close to the Canadian border. It’s cloudy a whole lot, rains a lot too. My parents lived in the forest, a bit more secluded than everyone else, and we took care of a lot of the deer that roamed. My mother had some weird soft-spot for the animals, screamed at my dad till he got the land to be protected for the animals. She made our land a safe haven for the deer. Damn woman is crazy, went even crazier when I told her that I’d be going off to fight in this god forsaken hell hole.”   
“You make your mother sound so bad, but your father sounds a bit like you.”  
“How so?” he was curious as to what this girl thought she knew.  
“Well if your mom had to scream at him, it means he probably didn’t listen the first time. Kind of like when I told you not to try and move around, you did it anyway, and it didn’t do you any good.”  
“Ugh,” he groaned. “You sound just like her.” He accused, sarcastically but slightly scared because the similarities were becoming very apparent, she’d hollered at him all night after he tried to get up against her orders. Temari just laughed at him, shaking her head. This guy was a sarcastic SOB just like Kankuro, it was comforting.   
“The caravan will be here tomorrow to take you and some others to the real hospital.” She informed him, sad to see the poor injured boy go but hopeful that he’d get better treatment. She didn’t miss the look on his face; the soldiers all deemed the hospital the last stop before dying. They might have been right in most cases, but Shikamaru was healthy, he hadn’t gotten sick yet, and his wounds were nowhere near as bad as many that she’d sent there. He’d be there a week tops, then he’d be back in the trenches.   
“About that…” he started, his hand rubbing the back of his head. “I don’t think that’s really necessary.”  
“And why would that be?” she asked, crossing her arm in front of her and leaning back in her chair while she waited for his explanation.  
He sat up in his cot, the grimace of pain not missed by Temari’s gaze as it flickered on his face, and leaned back against the metal headboard.   
“As you can see, I am perfectly capable of moving.” He pointed out.  
“Stiffly and just barely.” She scoffed.  
“I’ve been stuck in this bed, trapped actually, thanks to your convincing threat to tie me down if I tried to get up again.” He pointed out.  
“Threat, no my dear, that was a promise. If you get up again before I give you clearance, I will tie you down.” She warned, standing and preparing to leave.  
“Well in that case.” He started to get up, swinging his wrapped legs off the side of his bed; neither had been broken just fractured.   
She pushed him back down, her hand flat against his chest. She forced him back down onto the bed, her hand warm against the battle toned muscles in his chest. Her hand lingered there, longer than it should have. This shouldn’t have affected her; she’d already seen him when she treated his wounds, besides she’d seen thousands of men in poor states of dress. Somehow this was different. She could feel his heartbeat through the layers of his shirt and the gauze that covered his wound.   
She leaned down, her face getting closer and closer to his until they were breathing the same air, sharing the same small space. Her eyes slid closed, as did his, and he could feel the ghost traces of her lips, the smallest of spaces separating their lips from joining. The anticipation was a pain but it’d been so long since Shikamaru had kissed a girl, he was unsure of himself. Being with only other men for nearly two years had left him feeling extremely inexperienced for his current situation.  
Temari pushed forward just enough and their lips collided. It took seconds for passion to make itself known, Shikamaru grasped desperately at her curvy waist and hips while Temari’s hands ran through his hair.   
No one stopped the two, the other nurses had seen the way the soldier looked at their coworker and how she smiled sweetly at his strange quirks. Too many people had been lost to the war and they weren’t going to stop anyone from finding what little happiness and joy they could in this god-forsaken wasteland, no matter how fleeting. They tried to stay quiet, partitioning the small area in an attempt to give them some privacy.  
The two had blocked out the world that surrounded them, lost in the kiss. Temari’s skin was on fire at his touch, not a fast flame that could be so easily snuffed out but like slow-burning embers that were searing her skin; she was confident the feeling would stay with her long after the kiss ended. The kiss had to end, and it did, much to Shikamaru’s dismay, which he hid very well. His attempt to bring her body closer to his was interrupted, when he tried to pick her up his injured arm was unable to move the way he needed it to. Forcing it made him groan in pain and that small gasp of pain was all it took to bring Temari back to the present.   
She scolded him, almost as if nothing had happened between them, and hastily said goodnight. He was left with a longing for another kiss and without clearance to leave the medical tent.


	3. Gone

Temari left the medical tent hastily. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were lit up, and she could still feel his hands on her waist, burning a print into her skin. She hustled to the small tent where she and the few other nurses stayed when they weren’t on call or needed in the medic tent. She quickly found her cot and collapsed onto it, ignoring the curious gazes of her fellow nurses.   
Sakura, Ino, Tenten, and Hinata remained silent for a long while, hoping that their friend would bring up the incident herself, but that didn’t seem too likely. The four of them had seen her and the wounded soldier, they’d let it go then but now they were curious. The boy had been a focus of the nurses; the really critical injuries bypassed them so they were left with infections and cases like his.   
Hinata had fielded the questions of his friends; the others still teased her about the blush that broke out whenever the blond boy came around to ask about his friend. Sakura and Ino suspected there was more to it than visiting a hurt friend. He’d brought a friend last time, Kiba, who’d immediately tried to put the moves on Ino, earning him a red palm print on his cheek. Tenten had been in contact with the group’s leader, Neji, who she’d admired from afar since she’d been stationed here, though she’d never admit it.   
Temari was the only one who’d never taken much interest in the soldiers that came through. The others would be lying if they claimed to not enjoy the attention from the soldiers, or that this was the first group of boys to catch their attention, but not Temari. She’d never even given any boys a second glance until this one came along.   
“T-T-Temari,” Hinata started, cautious yet urged on by the other girls to engage their friend. “Are- are you okay?” she hesitantly reached out to touch the blonde girls shoulder.   
Temari didn’t speak, just shook her head, rubbing her temples in a futile attempt to stop the frantic thoughts that ran through her mind. The other waited, knowing she would eventually explain.  
“I can’t…I can’t do it.” She choked out. She didn’t need to explain more than that, the girls shared a knowing look; all of them had been in this position at one time or another. They couldn’t get attached to these boys; the likelihood of them surviving was just not good. Sakura was the one that reached out now.  
“It’s okay Temari, the war is nearly over. Let him go back to the battlefield.”  
“What! No I have to send him to the real hospital, he’ll get treatment and he’ll get away from the front lines.”  
“No, you can’t send him to the hospital.” Tenten burst, unlike herself. Temari had been reassigned here not long ago. She’d been working on the lines far east of here, where the hospitals were still functional and could actually be called a hospital. “Hospitals here are strife with illness and infections, his wounds may be minor but you send him there and you’re sending him straight to death’s door. Send him to a hospital in this area and you might as well sign his death certificate now.”  
Temari stared, gob smacked at the girls. How could hospitals be so terrible here? How could she send him back out there with his injuries? But she knew the brunette wasn’t lying, she rarely spoke to her but when she did it was almost always profound.  
“So I have to choose between sending him back into battle or to a disease ridden hospital?” she laughed at the absurdity of it all.   
“It’s more like giving him a chance to live or ensuring that he’ll die before the end of the month.” Ino interjected, blunt as ever. When she put it that way her decision became really easy to make. She’d have to let him go back onto the battlefield and let fate decide if the war would claim him as it had done with some many others. Temari nodded slowly, her decision made.   
The other girls had left their friend in thought. Temari glanced around the tent, all of the girls were asleep, or at least trying to sleep. Temari decided it would be best if she followed their lead, pulling up the thin sheet she felt her eyelids shut and her brain begin to power down.   
She didn’t know when or how it happened, but somehow she’d grown accustomed to the continual bombing and yelling from the soldiers, they didn’t keep her awake at night, not anymore  
The next day was much like every other one. She ate her rationed breakfast of dried meat and stale bread with the other nurses before heading off to treat and check on the wounded men that were lying in the medical tent. Shikamaru was in the back of the tent, his area partitioned off to allow him to rest so she was unable to see him until it was nearly dusk, she had been stationed in the front, treating the smaller, more manageable wounds that filtered through the tent flaps.   
By the time she was done working her forehead was damp with sweat and her hair had begun to frizz out of control, unable to be tamed by the hair ties. She walked back with her dinner, fully intending to tell Shikamaru that he’d be allowed to leave the next day, but when she reached his cot, he wasn’t there. The sheets were crumpled up and on the pillow lay a slip of paper with hastily scratched handwriting.

Temari,  
I’m very sorry about this but Neji went above your head in this matter, insisting to Tsunade that I was well enough to get back to the trenches. I don’t disagree with him but I would have liked to see you one more time. My squad is being moved to another part of the battle, right on the front lines. Lucky me. But my squad only has a few months left on our tour and if we take this station we’ll be sent home as soon as we’re done there. I hope you can forgive me for not saying goodbye.  
(If you really are like my mother I doubt you will)  
\- Shikamaru

She wanted to hit something, and break it. How dare he leave her like this, with just this stupid letter, with no way to contact him, no way to know whether he’d live. She’d been right earlier; he really was just like her brother. Both of them had run off leaving her with a half-assed excuse and a sincere, although infuriatingly blunt, apology. She wasn’t even mad that he had gone; the same would have happened if she’d been the one to clear him for duty, but somehow this stung more then she’d thought it would.   
The fire he’d ignited in her, the slow burning flame that had surrounded her very being had kick started the ambition and, worst of all, the hope she’d long ago forsaken. The hope that her brother was okay, the hope that she’d return home to both of her brothers, the hope that they’d all make it out of this alive. She’d forgotten about all that, and now, because of this stupid SOB, she was right back where she started. It had taken so much out of her to bury those feelings, to build up the wall that had kept her sane for so long.  
The letter had been crushed in her hand during her fit. Luckily the other nurses had either turned in for the night or were up in the front of the tent, unaware of the turmoil that was raging within her, a carefully placed mask covering her feelings. Flattening out the letter she folded it into a neat square and shoved it in her pocket before she left the suddenly suffocating heat of the tent.   
The tent was stationed on a hill, she could see nearly to the front lines, little specks, soldiers, moving around on the battle grounds. Far off, nearly hidden by the glare of the setting sun she could see a group of soldiers moving further and further away. She didn’t know how she knew but she knew that was his squad.


	4. Found

Temari’s service to the military was done three months after Shikamaru left. For three long months she watched the horizon, just short of the front lines, for something, anything. And every night she went to bed, worried about so many things. Would she move on from this heartache? Would Kankuro make it home? She hadn’t heard anything from him in such a long time. Would Shikamaru survive the front lines? Would she ever see either of those boys again? Would Garra still be whole when she finally did return home?  
Each night she would lie awake, the bombs exploding and the yelling only reminding her of those she worried about. She could no longer sleep through the noise, and got very little sleep, only stopping when she passed out from sheer exhaustion. The other nurses couldn’t hide the worry they felt for their friend, they tried to help but little got through to her in those weeks. She worked robotically, barely speaking to anyone. Their service couldn’t end soon enough. Temari and Tenten were the only ones returning home, the other three were staying to serve another year. Temari needed to see her brother and Tenten’s mother was sick and in desperate need of the one family member she had left, Tenten.   
When she returned she found their home in disarray. It looked like a seventeen year old boy had been left by himself for nearly a year, and Garra was much neater than the typical seventeen year old. Dishes were left dirty in the sink, though they were not moldy so he must have some sort of cleaning cycle. Dust had collected in most of the home; the only places that looked lived in were the kitchen and Garra’s room. Her room, like Kankuro’s, had been left to collect dust.  
There was a change in Garra as well; he was no longer the pale, sickly kid that had locked himself inside his room after their father’s funeral. Being the only one to work the land had made him strong. He spent long hours in the fields, the sun beating down on him and tanning his skin. He’d grown considerably; his maturity and loyalty to his siblings had kept him from giving up completely. He’d managed to keep the farm, while many of the surrounding farmers had lost what little land they’d managed to keep after the last economic downfall.   
While their land and financial stance had improved under Garra’s control, he had not. He had been isolated for most of the time they’d been gone, the one visitor a quiet girl with dirty blonde hair who bought fruits and vegetable from their farm for her father’s store. He could barely hold a conversation with Temari when she returned, the only signal she’d gotten that he was happy to see her was the long hug she received when he returned from the fields to find her cleaning and cooking dinner.   
He was taller than her now, built more like Kankuro now. She felt a pang in her gut at the thought. When she first arrived home she’d found the letter, laid out on the desk, covered in dust like everything else. It was a letter she’d feared receiving, but not in the way she’d thought. It wasn’t the killed in action notice she’d had nightmares about, it simply read how Kankuro had been sent behind enemy lines to infiltrate but had lost contact with his squad and it was unclear what had happened to him. This was as good as a killed in action notice.   
She hadn’t really processed the information, and she couldn’t talk to Garra about it. He seemed to be socially stunted. She wanted to talk to Kankuro, or Shikamaru. But thinking about either of them stung. Kankuro because she didn’t know what happened to him, but she could guess the most likely outcome and Shikamaru because she knew she would never know what happened to him.   
She missed him something fierce. She missed the familiar and easy conversations they had. How they could be sarcastic and teasing with each other, without fear of one misinterpreting the jokes. She missed the feeling of butterflies in her stomach, making her feel light, whenever she saw him. She even missed his lazy sigh that she swore would be the reason she snapped one day. She wanted to feel his hands on her waist again, to have his lips against hers just one more time. The first time she’d taken it for granted, she hadn’t savored it like she should have. She wanted the fire he’d ignited beneath her skin back, she wanted him to stir the embers that remained and bring the passion she’d found in that kiss back.   
With every fiber of her being she hoped the Shikamaru made it home safely. That he was back with his parents, complaining about his mother and mumbling comments with one consistent adjective, troublesome.  
Shikamaru had not made it home after his last three months of duty, the military had gone back on their promise, but it was Shikamaru and his squad that felt the effects of that betrayal. It was a month after he was supposed to be home that the squad stumbled upon the half-dead soldier on the edge of no man’s land. The man was older than those in the squad, his brown hair long overdue for a cut but matted down with blood and dirt. The rest of his body was similarly caked in the mixture of blood and dirt.   
The man had no markings to distinguish which side he belonged to but Neji was determined to find out which side he was from before any action was taken. Shikamaru and Kiba had been the ones to risk themselves in their retrieval of the man’s body. With only a few scrapes they returned with the third man. Neji was skilled at treating wounds and had quickly patched up what he could and cleaned the man’s face so that it was free of the dried bloody mess.   
He was tan, nearly burnt, probably from the time he’d spent in no man’s land, and he was a big man. His brown hair was thick, even without the bloody/mud mixture. The first three days he didn’t wake, and after that he couldn’t speak much, his mouth was dry and cracking, blood dripping from his lips whenever he tried to speak.   
Shikamaru wasn’t eager to spend any more time than he had to with the poor man, his wounds were serious and it didn’t look good for him. Neji wouldn’t risk reporting him, the higher ranking generals would kill the unknown man on the spot and ask questions later. Sometimes it seemed that Neji and Shikamaru were the only ones with level heads. But Shikamaru’s unwillingness to watch the broken man went unannounced; it gave him time to think without interruptions.   
He would never admit it but he spent most of that time thinking of Temari. She’d told him of her brother, how he’d left them a note explaining his volunteering for the war. And though she didn’t say it, he could see in her eyes that it nearly tore her apart. He didn’t realize until he was already gone just how similar his leaving was to her brother’s. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel guilty about the way he’d left it, but it would also be a lie to say he wouldn’t leave all over again.   
He remembered how she often wondered out loud to him about her other brother, worrying over how he was doing all by himself on their families land. She’s shown him a picture once; it was old and tattered around the edges from her folding and unfolding it. The picture was small, and a few years old. In it was an older, work worn man whose skin was leathery from being in the sun so long. In front of him were three teenagers, Temari and her brothers. Temari was in the middle, her hair braided down one shoulder. To her left was her youngest brother, Garra, he was sickly looking, skinny and looking at the camera with hollow eyes. To her right was her other younger brother, the middle child, Kankuro. He had a remarkable similarity to his father; he has the same facial features and the same strong looking bodies. The photo had slipped out of her pocked the last night they’d talked, and Shikamaru, in a bout of selfishness, decided to keep it, a reminder of his blonde nurse with a promised threat.   
These times were when he allowed himself to miss her. And it was hard to restrain himself to just these times. He missed the smile she’d give him after each of her threats, promises. They way her sarcastic nature melded so well with his. How she nagged him, in the same way his mother had all his life. He especially missed the feel of her waist under his hands, the swell of her shapely hips. He missed the sweet bite of her lips when they were against his, sweet and sour at the same time, much like her.   
A gust of wind tore through the trench, pulling the photograph from his hand. The gust dropped the photo in the dirt beside the bruised and broken man. Groaning at the extra movement he got to his feet. Reaching over the man he grabbed the photo, looking past it to the face of the man. There was a sudden connect in his mind, glancing slowly between the photo and the man beside him he noted the striking resemblance. It was hidden behind bruising and dirt, but the resemblance was undeniable.  
The man next to him was Temari’s brother, the one who’d caused her so much heartache. The one she hadn’t heard from in so long. He’d been staring at the photo, when he looked back at the man he was looking into eyes so eerily similar to Temari’s that he might have believed they belonged to her. His eyes were dull, barely awake as he studied Shikamaru lazily. Those eyes became sharp, focusing more on the man that had dragged him from no man’s land at the sound of Shikamaru’s hushed voice.  
“Kankuro.”


	5. Home From Last

It took Temari three long months to begin adjusting back to civilian life. She and Garra now worked the land equally, though Garra insisted he continue dealing with the cattle and other livestock on his own. Temari allowed him to, noting how he seemed more at peace after he returned. It was long, hard work but he found some peace in it so Temari didn’t bother arguing with him. Temari busied herself with rebuilding the overgrown and neglected garden that had withered and died in her absence. It was a good distraction, a fantastic one actually. She’d planted the seeds earlier and now they were growing quickly, giving forth a bounty of vegetables and fruits. She used what came out of her garden in their meals, sending the rest of the produce to market. She and Garra took turns going to market, each Saturday they would hitch up the wagon and drive the horses into town.   
It was Garra’s week to go to market, which always included his complaints about horses and their smell, and they slow, bumpy movements. He was eager to save enough for and automobile, ever since she’d told him about the vehicles the generals drove to transport supplies between camps that’s all he talked about. With a wave goodbye Garra was headed into town. The trip took about an hour so he’d get there in time to set up a stand and he would leave just before dark.   
Temari headed back into the farmhouse, pulling her hair into a hasty braid before moving to clean the kitchen. On Saturdays she cleaned the house, it was strange, Temari had never been very domestic, but it was calming. When she thought about it the reason it calmed her was probably the disinfectant smell, it was similar to the smell of the medic tents.   
She tried not to think much about that, it only made her feel nostalgic. She missed the other girls; she’d gotten a few letters from Tenten, who was home caring for her sick mother. Mostly it was just keeping in contact, while the girls didn’t talk much they’d formed a strange friendship that didn’t need the endless chatter that seemed key to Sakura and Ino’s friendship. She’d only received one or two letters from Ino, Sakura, and Hinata. Usually they all wrote a little bit and mailed it together. It was comforting to hear from the girls, Temari often worried about them out there, while they weren’t in eminent danger the other side had tried a few times to hit the medic tents and base camps, they’d been successful once or twice and it had devastated the places hit.   
But mostly she tried not to think about Shikamaru. She didn’t want to admit it, but she lonely. Garra was her brother, and she loved him, but he wasn’t a talker. He could barely hold a conversation with her, or anyone. She missed the girls she’d worked with, but she missed him more. How they just meshed, they got along without any explanations needed. She missed their conversations, how his laziness knew no bounds, how he would grunt and mumble something about troublesome women under his breath. But mostly she missed the ease she felt when he was around.   
She’d never felt the need to have a boyfriend, not like some girls did, but when he was around things just felt right. It was the kind of feeling you get after something you didn’t know you were missing comes back to you, like the familiar smell of a home cooked meal made from her mother’s recipe after being away for so long. Only now she knew what was missing, and it left her feeling hollow.   
The trip home had been long, a week on a rocking boat had not been as Shikamaru imagined. He was done with the military now, his tour was over, but he was far from home. The boat left his squad, a rag-tag group of boys that he’d grown up with, in Virginia. They were still far from home, but they were too weary to try and find a way home that night. They’d stopped off at a cheap motel sort of place, a place Shikamaru would normally steer clear of. But Naruto and Kiba were looking for something in particular, some entertainment, they insisted, was necessary for their first night back.   
Shikamaru couldn’t help the lazy eye roll as he followed his perverted friends into the sleazy bar. There were blindingly bright lights flashing everywhere and obscenely loud amounts of yelling. He followed his buddies to the bar, their service uniforms as good as an ID, and bought a few beers. Kiba and Naruto dragged the group over to the other side of the bar, the side where scantily clad women danced on a stage to the loud music. Naruto and Kiba sat right in front of the stage, immediately catching the eyes of the women with their loud yells. Choji stayed behind to order the group food, while Shikamaru and Shino begrudgingly joined their overzealous friends. They sat at the table near the stage, but not as close as the other two. Choji joined them not long after, large plates of wings and burgers in hand. The three ate, mostly oblivious to the girls that were now making Naruto and Kiba go wild.   
These women were used to service men back from their tour; they certainly dealt with guys like this often enough. Two of them moved off the stage and began to pay special attention to those two. Shikamaru, Shino, and Choji watched, more amused at the sight of their friends making fools of themselves than the girls themselves. They finished eating rather quickly, the other dancers now heading for them. Choji accepted a dance from a pretty blonde with wide hips and sly green eyes. Shino turned down the dance, blunt as always as he told the girl he simply wasn’t interested. Now she approached Shikamaru.  
She was blonde like the girl now sitting on Choji’s lap, but she had short, golden blonde hair, sun-kissed skin, and blue-green eyes. She bore a striking resemblance to the girl that had been on his mind as a near constant distraction. She had a slim waist that gave way to curvy hips and toned legs that caught his eye. He had to remember that this wasn’t her, he’d never seen this much skin from her, he never would.   
At that thought he wondered why he was so hesitant to take the dance from her, he’d accepted only after she’d looked at him with those big eyes framed by dark lashes. He wouldn’t see Temari again, there was no reason for him to go to Texas and even if he had one, she would be livid. The way he left, without even a goodbye, surely whatever trust he earned was gone.  
That night Naruto and Kiba each took one of the three rooms the group had rented, they needed some privacy with the girls from the bar, leaving the other three to share one room for the night. They didn’t mind, they’d spent nearly a year and a half in dirt holes in the cold ground and blistering mud, sharing a room certainly didn’t bother them. It was nearly three when they made it back, and only two hours later Shikamaru was woken up by a loud banging on the door. Grumbling he got off the couch he’d been sleeping on. Choji and Shino were dead asleep, and after an hour of banging and slightly muffled but still suggestive noise coming from each side of the room he was sure Naruto and Kiba had passed out with their dancers.   
Everyone was accounted for, so who was banging at his door at this hour?  
Ready to yell at whoever it was that was preventing him from getting a nice, peaceful sleep, he opened the door.   
“Howdy, genius boy.” The figure leaning against the doorframe began. Shikamaru didn’t need to see him to know who it was. Kankuro had the thick southern accent that had prevailed where his sister’s hadn’t. He also adopted the nickname for Shikamaru not long after he’d been identified as Kankuro, a soldier lost behind enemy lines two months prior. He’d told the officers that he’d been hiding out before he was captured, which he later escaped from before taking the only chance he had and running into no man’s land. It was nearly impossible to believe how he’d survived. But if Shikamaru had learned anything from the time he’d spend with the man it was that he was one lucky SOB. Even Kankuro knew that, he was possibly the only one to have crossed no man’s land and survived.  
“What do you want at…” he looked at his watch, “five in the morning?” he asked, yawning as he scratched the back of his bed head.  
“Well, your captain… black hair, not too friendly…” he started describing the group’s leader.   
“Neji.” Shikamaru offed.  
“Yeah him, well he said that since you identified me you were the lucky one that gets to escort me home.” He brushed past Shikamaru, dropping his bag on the pile that already consisted of Shikamaru, Choji, and Shino’s bag.  
Shikamaru was silent; he’d have to escort Kankuro back home, to Texas, to the same home where Temari might be. In all honesty he didn’t remember when she was done her duty but he knew she wouldn’t have taken a second tour.   
“Why can’t Neji do it, he’s the one in charge?” Shikamaru whined, suddenly apprehensive about the next few weeks of his life.  
“Well…” Kankuro began a smirk on his face, “I can’t be sure, but I think I saw him walk off will some brunette girl, I think she was a nurse. What was her name…it doesn’t matter. Your leader is off gallivanting so you’re stuck with me.” Kankuro punctuated his statement by plopping down in the armchair and quickly falling asleep before Shikamaru had fully processed this information.   
He was going to Texas.  
He was going to see Temari again.


	6. The Nara Home

Shikamaru didn’t get nervous. The feeling was nearly foreign to him but he was grateful to have lived this long and not felt this paralyzing emotion.  
He hadn’t seen his mother in so long, and they’d argued before he left, making this harder than his should have been. He heard Kankuro groan in the bus seat next to him. The older man had moaned and groaned about having to visit Shikamaru’s parents before getting home, but he wasn’t looking forward to his sister’s wrath any more than Shikamaru was.   
The two had found out that their farewells to Temari had been eerily similar, both leaving just a letter with no good reason behind their actions. Both were certain they’d get a good smack in the head for that when they arrived, though Shikamaru feared she’d beat him to a bloody pulp as he’d seen her temper flare during his time in the medical tent. She was a force to be reckoned with when she was angered.   
“Shikamaru, Kankuro. This is your stop.” The bus skidded to a halt, sending dirt and gravel scattering as the large, tattooed bus driver called them with a gravelly voice. The two men grabbed the muddy green bags the military had given them as a parting gift; it held the few things they were keeping after their service and what they’d managed to keep through their tour.   
Shikamaru had the picture he’d stolen from Temari, a picture of his childhood friends, his squad, all camped out in the backyard of the house they were currently walking too, and a picture of his parents, his mother nagging his father, who could be seen mid-eye roll. The picture showed his parents in their true form.   
Shikamaru tended to favor his father; anyone could see the similarities the two shared, mainly because his mother was simply too much trouble, always nagging one of them about something. Before he left for the war he’d often viewed his father as whipped, allowing his mother to make decisions without any discussion. There was one moment, when he was leaving, that he saw a different side of his parent’s relationship.   
It was raining, of course that was the norm in Maine, and he was ignoring his mother’s yelling as he walked to the bus that would take him and his friends to training before they would be shipped overseas to fight. He was finally on the bus when he looked back to his home, to see his parents standing on the porch. She’d stopped yelling at Shikamaru and was now pointing the finger at Shikaku, blaming him for allowing their son to leave. This wasn’t abnormal, Shikaku simply took the yells, except this time he didn’t. He stared down at Yoshino, his wife and the mother of his son, and with all the understanding that came from years of marriage he acted. He pulled his wife close against his chest, cutting off the yelling. Shikamaru thought for sure she would kill his father, but she didn’t. Her angry words and harsh tone melted away and left tears. He could distinctly see tears running down his mother’s face just as the bus pulled away and just before Shikamaru could see his mother break down.   
It was a sunny day today, and his parents were probably inside right now, his mother cleaning or cooking while simultaneously nagging his father to get up and do something. The thought brought a barely-there smirk to his face as he neared the front porch.  
Yoshino came down the stairs, empty laundry basket in hand, to see Shikaku in the same place she left him when she went upstairs. She scowled in his general direction and was about to begin yelling again but the words stuck in her throat when she accidently glanced at the picture on the wall beside her. The picture had been taken on Shikamaru’s first day of school, many, many years ago. He was standing beside his best friend and neighbor, Choji. Behind them were two boys arguing and another just staring off absently. They would become her son’s friends over the years. The two boys arguing didn’t really change; Kiba and Naruto had just upgraded their arguments to fights, hands on fist fights. But those rarely broke out and they were often short lived. The other boy was still much the same, Shino was still the quite, bug obsessed boy. The group was a bit ragtag but they were good friends despite it all. She shouldn’t have been surprised that they all went off to war together.   
She hadn’t gotten a letter from her son in so long, neither had Kiba or Choji’s mothers. Shino’s mother was rarely out of the house so she couldn’t be asked and Naruto had been orphaned at a young age. The mother’s she did talk to all worried, but none of them had gotten letters from their son’s either. If anything they should be thankful, if they longed for a letter too much they might just receive one, but not they kind a mother wants, the kind that is hand delivered by a soldier that is not your son.   
No, she would rather go on not hearing from his than have a soldier at her door with one of those damned letters.  
She’d been so caught up in her thought Yoshino hadn’t heard the footsteps approaching their home. Shikaku had noticed her distraction, knowing it was the same thing that had distracted her ever since their son went off to war. She’d never been one to worry, at least not to let her worry show, but she couldn’t hide it from him, he knew her all too well.   
It was the part of their relationship that their son had never really seen; why he didn’t understand how they worked. Shikaku was passive; he didn’t see the point in arguing when he would only do what she wanted in the end. And while the nagging was troublesome, it was also needed. Shikaku was well aware of how little he would have accomplished if she had not been there to nag him until he did it. There was also a much softer side of Yoshino that Shikamaru never saw; she had made that a point to keep. Yoshino wanted Shikamaru to see how strong and independent women were, something Shikaku had not realized until they’d been married, so she never showed her softer side, the side that carried the smile that could make him do anything. And Yoshino was a soft woman; her love for her family was almost a fault, though only those closest to her knew that. She’d been depressed for the weeks that followed Shikamaru’s departure, refusing to nag Shikaku or even get out of bed some days. It had brought Shikaku to the end of his patience, a feat that many had deemed impossible. He snapped one day, very uncharacteristically, and she just stood there and listened to him yell. It was like their roles had reversed. She’d gotten better after that, she didn’t like the feeling of being submissive and just taking someone’s anger. But he did catch her staring off at that picture every once in a while.   
The knock at the door was what finally pulled Yoshino from her daze. Shikaku could tell by the look of panic on her face, which was quickly masked by her usual shields, that she had been thinking about the lack of letters from their son, and that she was now sure that their son wasn’t at the door, but a strange soldier was there, ready to hand her the letter she wouldn’t be able to read.   
Shikaku beat her to the door, moving with speed rarely seen out of the lazy man. But Yoshino was fast too, and she was able to slip around him and be standing in the doorway when the door opened.   
All this time she’d expected that little child version of Shikamaru to come at the door. She never thought she’d see him as a younger version of his father. His face was void of the scars his father had but he was the same in every other facet of his appearance.   
All of the years of cool, calm, and collected independence she’d paraded before Shikamaru when out the window right then. She may or may not have squealed a bit when she pulled her son into a bone crushing hug. She let a few happy tears fall as she hugged Shikamaru, ignoring the laugh of her husband and the confused look of the boy standing behind Shikamaru.   
“You okay mom?” Shikamaru asked, confused and taken aback by his mother’s outburst. She pulled back, discreetly wiping the tears before she spoke, her façade back in place.  
“You had me worried SICK. For over a YEAR. Young man I am NOT OKAY, and when I’m through with you neither will you!” she smacked him on the head for good measure before turning towards the kitchen  
“Oh and tell your friend he’s staying for dinner.” She yelled as pots and pans clattering from the kitchen as she yanked open and then slammed shut drawers and cabinets.  
Dinner was a quite affair in the beginning, Shikaku had gotten the boys to talk a bit but Yoshino refused to have that type of talk at her kitchen table, so they stopped and ate the meal in silence. It was delicious, neither boy could remember the last time they’d eaten so much food and food that had so much flavor. They’d almost forgotten what real meat tasted like, and how soft bread was before it went stale. Shikamaru swallowed the last bite of bead before he brought up the next delicate subject for discussion, Kankuro.  
His mother was angry, to say the least, shouting and cursing. But she couldn’t stop him, technically he was still on duty until Kankuro was taken home, and if something happened he could be forced back to the front lines. Shikamaru’s saving grace was his father’s logical mind and his stern voice telling Yoshino that this was one thing not to fight the Nara men on. Surprisingly enough she listened.   
Yoshino set the two boys up in Shikamaru’s room, which had remained mostly untouched since he’d left. The boys would sleep there tonight before they would leave again, and take Kankuro back home to Texas. All though dinner he’d told the Nara family about growing up in Texas with his siblings, he’d shared stories of the three of them and the trouble that they’d get into, only to be bailed out by Temari’s quick thinking.   
Shikamaru went to sleep with a heavy mind, it would take them a few days but they would get to Texas eventually, and when they did, Temari would be there. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that to be completely honest.


	7. Back On The Ranch

After yet another long and troublesome trip Shikamaru and Kankuro had finally reached northern Texas. The siblings lived at the very northern tip of the state, in the dry, dessert that didn’t seem capable of cultivating life and providing sustenance. Shikamaru’s forehead was already damp with sweat, he wiped it on his short sleeved jacket as he shoved it back into his bag, he’d long ago rid himself of the extra layer. He was thankful that he’d worn shorts and a sleeveless shirt under the jacket, this heat would have killed him otherwise. Kankuro didn’t seem to have a problem, he was accustomed to it so the pants and a short sleeved shirt didn’t bother him.   
The bus took off down the barely visible road, shaking, sputtering and kicking up dirt as it went. The two men looked at each other, mentally preparing for the next and final step of their journey. On the long trip there Shikamaru had revealed the relationship he’d had with Kankuro’s sister and, much to his surprise, he was still breathing. Kankuro wasn’t worried about his sister, she would take care of herself, but if she ever asked he’d always be there to lend a hand. Kankuro had simply warned him that Temari would not be quick to forgive him. Kankuro had a bit of leeway being her brother but Shikamaru was shit out of luck if his sister decided to hold a grudge.   
The two began walking, there wasn’t a stop any closer to the ranch and there weren’t many modes of transportation. Plus Kankuro wanted to surprise his siblings. Shikamaru grumbled quietly about the heat and lack of any real landmarks while trying to disguise his growing anxiety.   
Would Temari even remember him? Would she care about him or was he just a one-off. Surely hundreds of wounded soldier like himself had gone through that infirmary. Is that just what she did to those wounded men? On the other hand she might have treated him differently and actually cared about him. If that was the case then would she be angry with him? Would she yell and tell him to leave? Would she still want to be with him?   
The normally calm and collected man felt his mind overrun with these pesky thoughts.   
Shikamaru was beginning to question Kankuro’s sense of direction, they’d been walking half an hour and he still couldn’t see anything for miles. He was ready to question their direction when the two came to the edge of a ridge Shikamaru didn’t know he was on. Below them, in the seemingly random valley, was a easily spotted ranch home beside a barn nearly four times the size of the house and all of that was surrounded by a large fence that enclosed the entire valley behind tall, barbed wire fences. It was clear that the fence was only to keep the cattle in, as the livestock stayed well away from their boundaries.   
It took them very little time to get down to the valley, and all too soon they were standing at the door of the farmhouse.  
Garra was in town for the day, Temari had convinced him to ask the pretty, young girl that bought goods from them to lunch. She was eager to see her brother happy, he’d been such a lonely boy all his life it was good to see him show interest in this cute girl. That left Temari at home once again. She had tended the garden earlier in the morning, before the sun began to beat down on the land, and was now cleaning the house like she did every few days. She noticed recently that the dirt Garra would track in was slowly lessening, the rooms were rarely dusty, and the clutter that she’d come home to was all but gone. There was less and less for her to do each time she set about to clean, mainly because with her back Garra seemed to pick up after himself more than when he’d been by himself. Soon Temari would only need to clean one a week to keep the house in shape, Garra would insist on taking care of the land and repairs to the ranch but that list of things to do was also getting shorter.   
Temari supposed once she had more time she might go into town more often, maybe set up a stand to sell the families produce directly, maybe she’d take up a hobby like her mother. The woman that was only in the baby pictures that lined the wall was an exact copy of Temari, or rather Temari was a clone of her mother as far as looks went. They shared the same blonde hair and blue-green eyes. But the similarities ended at the surface, Temari was more of her father than even she dared to believe. She had learned to be caring from her mother, but her instincts always told her to do whatever she needed to survive, to do what was best for the family, no matter what. That was her father.   
Temari’s mother had painted and played the small wooden guitar, those two things gave her the ability to deal with all the work she would have to do to keep the ranch running. She died a few years after Garra was born, illness of some kind that the doctor couldn’t diagnose until after there was nothing left to do that could save her.  
Lost in her thoughts Temari had nearly finished her cleaning, now she stood before the only area in the house still left cluttered. When their father was alive it had been his desk, where his dealt with all the financial stuff that went along with the ranch and the land the family owned. When their father died that job had gone to Kankuro. He was good with numbers and their father had been planning on handing the ranch over to him in a few years anyway. But when Kankuro left, Garra had to deal with it because Temari left not long after. The financials were done, but Garra wasn’t nearly as organized as his older siblings. His organization made sense to him but anyone else would probably be buried in stacks of paper after a few moments of searching for one item. There was a small cleared off spot where Garra worked. Currently there was only one thing sitting there left for him to do. Kankuro’s MIA notice and some documents from the state.  
Kankuro had been missing for nearly a year, no word had gotten to them to say any different, and the state was on Garra to document the death and get the matter settled. But Garra, Temari too, simply couldn’t sign Kankuro’s death certificate without more proof. It would be too hard to place a third headstone in the family’s personal cemetery, even harder because they wouldn’t have a body to bury with it. So they’d put off on that last detail.   
Temari looked down at the picture that sat on the desk, the one picture their father had felt the need to have on his desk. It was the same one she’d carried around while serving as a nurse, until it had gone missing. Their father had gotten it taken of him and the three siblings nearly a year after they lost their mother. Temari couldn’t tear her eyes off the smirking face of her brother. Kankuro looked so much like their father but with a more mischievous glint in his eyes.   
Lately Temari felt herself give into the thoughts that Kankuro really was lost, another casualty of the war to end all wars. She hadn’t mentioned it to Garra yet, she feared how he’d react, but she was thinking they should just sign the paperwork, place the headstone, and move on from this third loss of a family member. Sometimes she wondered how she and Garra managed to be the only ones left, and how long they would last before the seemingly inevitable misfortune that followed their family fell onto one of the two remaining siblings.   
She was startled from her thoughts by a knock at the door. Glancing at the clock on the wall she knew it was far too early for Garra to be back, and they never got visitors way out here. She was cautious to answer, her mind working overtime. Raiders, and anyone looking to do harm, wouldn’t have knocked. Garra or a member from one of the other two ranches that were close, almost five miles, would have knocked, they would have entered or called out to see if anyone was home. That left one option. It was another soldier, like the one Garra described, the one that handed over the MIA notice. Temari felt a sweat break out along her hairline. Was this the KIA notice, would this seal Kankuro’s fate?  
Temari was able to still her shaky hands enough to open the door. The sun was blinding, she could only make out two silhouettes at first. As her eyes focused again she could scarcely believe what she was seeing. She must be sick and hallucinating. She couldn’t believe this. Her eyes darted between both figures, she didn’t know which was more unbelievable but she must have looked dumb with her mouth handing open in disbelief.


	8. Reunion

Kankuro tried, and failed miserably, to not react to the dumbstruck look on his sister’s face. Her slack jawed appearance was quite possibly the most comical thing he’d ever seen. But as his stifled laughter reached her ears she composed herself. She stood up straighter and narrowed her eyes, looking between the two standing on the front porch.   
“You,” she pointed to Kankuro, halting his laughter, “get inside.” She motioned for him to go past her. With one look back to Shikamaru, silently wishing him luck, Kankuro went inside the house he hadn’t seen in over a year.   
Shikamaru now felt the full weight of her gaze on him. He rubbed the back of his neck, his hand coming away damp with perspiration, funny he hadn’t been sweating during their entire trek to this ranch. He discreetly wiped the dampness off on his pants before shoving both hands into his pockets and finally meeting her eyes.   
The teal eyes burned as she stared him down. He watched as the frozen pools melted away, the glare dimming. She reached behind her, feeling the handle of the door burn her palm as she pulled it closed, cutting to two off form the prying eyes of Kankuro.   
Damn him she thought, feeling the stinging anger slip out of her body. If only he’d kept his eyes down, she could have written him off as a coward then. She could have slammed the door in his face, without a single word, and left him standing on the front porch. She could have forgot about him, made him out to be a silly little slip in judgment. But no, he had to look her in the eyes. He had the courage to come to her doorstep after what he’d done and look her in her eyes.   
She simply couldn’t continue her glare with those eyes staring right back at her, the brown eyed boy with the affinity for laziness had found her weakness. The sudden loss of her anger didn’t prompt her to speak though, and Shikamaru didn’t have any words; they were pointless in his opinion anyway. He knew that she’d react to him the same no matter what he said. So the two stared at each other in silence until Temari finally spoke, shoving her hand out between them in the only peace offering she could manage at the moment.  
“Thank you.” She spoke quietly, not used to thanking people, it was almost as bad as apologizing. Those were the only words she had for him right now, she wasn’t used to the jumbled mess that her mind had become.   
His cheeks didn’t flush, the way most people reacted when they were thanked, but his hand did return to the back of his head, his eyes darting down to the left, as he offered her a lazy shrug. The silence returned and dragged on until Temari made a move.   
She took a small step forward, and another, quickly closing the distance between them. Her arms wrapped around him, slipping through the space left between his sides and his bend arms. She pressed her body against him, resting her head against his chest.   
Shikamaru was sunned for a moment, his eyes drifted down to look at the blonde head resting against him. Trying to fight the awkwardness he wrapped his arms around her, gently patting her back. For a moment he thought she was crying, but he didn’t feel any dampness on his shirt. Glancing back down he could see a small smile spread across her face.   
She didn’t pull away, just picked her head up to look at him. He saw the resolve in her eyes before he realized what she was doing. Standing on her toes she was just able to kiss his cheek before whispering in his ear.  
“Thank you, thank you for bringing him home.” Her voice was thick with emotion, though there wasn’t a tear in sight.   
Shikamaru didn’t have a reply, he just nodded, closing his eyes as he felt the ghost of her lips against his cheek. She pulled away, smiling almost smugly as she noticed the slight flush in his cheeks. She turned towards the door and pushed it open. As she walked into the home she called out to the man standing like a statue on her front porch.  
“Well, come on then, no use standing there all day long.” He was startled, he’d zoned out a bit. He walked in after her, not really sure what was going to happen now.


	9. Arguments and Apologies

Shikamaru followed Temari into the ranch home, finding Kankuro sitting at the kitchen table. Temari continued moving, putting away the cleaning supplies she’d been using before. Thinking how strange it was the mindset she’d been in only minutes earlier. She’d almost given up on Kankuro, but it had always been like him to pull through at that last moment.   
Kankuro caught Shikamaru’s attention and motioned for him to come sit down, he did, hoping for some clue as to what was going to happen now. They watched Temari put things in the cabinet under the sink, following her movements as she began making dinner. She began preparing the meal, initially oblivious to the whispers going on behind her back.   
“How’d it go?” Kankuro whispered, more mouthing the words than speaking them, while watching his sister’s back just in case she heard him. Shikamaru shrugged, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and his lighter from the canvas bag still slung over his shoulder.   
“I’m still breathing.” He wouldn’t let Kankuro know how relieved he’d been when Temari asked him in, that she’d want him around.  
“What did you to talk about? You were out there for a while.” His pestering was starting to get on Shikamaru’s nerves, his fingers flipped the lid of the Marlboro pack open, pulling out a single cigarette.   
“She just thanked me.” He had the white stick between his teeth, laying the box on the table and picking up the lighter next  
“And….?” Kankuro waited for the and, he could tell there was one there.  
“She hugged me.” Shikamaru now turned his focus onto lighting the cigarette, signaling that he was done with the conversation.  
“Hmmmm…” Kankuro pondered that for a while as Shikamaru tried in vain to light his cigarette.   
There was little noise in the kitchen, just the methodical chopping of the knife in Temari’s hand and the click of the lighter as it refused to light. Temari couldn’t distinguish the topic of the conversation, though she could guess what the undistinguishable whispers were about. She did here the metallic clicking that was all too familiar.   
All of a sudden she was back in the medical tent tending to wounded soldiers. Cries of soldiers who were beyond her help faded in and out as background nose. There were tremors from bombs and ticking from artillery. Chatter from soldiers who were on break or visiting their wounded comrades. But over all of that she could hear the metallic clicking coming from all the way in the back. Pulling back the curtain she could see the frustrated soldier relentlessly trying to light his cigarette. How he kept getting more of those things she would never know, but like every time before that she took the cigarette from him, ignoring the muttered comment about her being ‘troublesome’.   
Back in the present she could still hear the same metallic clicking, she stopped preparing dinner and turned around to face the two soldiers sitting in her kitchen,   
“Didn’t that damn lighter get you in enough trouble already?” she asked, looking down on the two like a disapproving teacher does to troublesome students who do something they know they shouldn’t.   
A smile nearly formed on his face, but it didn’t quite make it. But he did let out a sigh and shrugged his shoulders, looking right back at her. The two stared each other down before Shikamaru conceded, he shoved the cigarette back in the box with the others and shoved that back in his bag along with the lighter. “Happy?”  
She smiled smugly and turned around to continue cooking. Kankuro was still confused by the exchange, but when he asked neither would let him in on their little joke.   
Dinner should have been an awkward affair, but soon enough the discomfort seeped out of the room and the comradery of the siblings returned. Garra had returned home just as the table was being set and walked in to find the brother he’d thought he’d lost sitting at the table joking with Temari and the other soldier sitting there at the table. Kankuro and Garra shared an awkward hug, no real words were spoken about Kankuro abandoning them.   
Dinner conversation was mostly a much edited version of what happened after Kankuro left, once he was MIA, and how he was found. Always the show-off Kankuro’s version of the story was much more glamourous than the report he’d given Shikamaru’s regiment. After that Garra filled Kankuro in on what had been going on with the farm. And by the time the meal was over the brothers were still deep in conversation. Financial stuff, weather they could expand or save money for emergencies, would the draft come back for Garra, and other such questions were batted back and forth between the brothers. Temari was beginning to clean up when the two boys insisted that they do the dishes, they had a lot to discuss anyway. Leaving Shikamaru alone with Temari for the time being.   
Temari decided to get some fresh air, not counting on Shikamaru following her. He swallowed his pride and during dinner it struck him that he never apologized for leaving her, he’d said it in his letter but that didn’t really count. He followed her, a few steps behind, until they reached the barn.   
“What do you want?” This was a very different Temari than the one that had hugged him on the front porch. Shikamaru held up his hand in defense, women with their damn mood swings he thought before he spoke.  
“Look, I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry for the way I left things. The letter was a bad choice but there wasn’t another option at the time.” The look she gave him made him slightly fearful for his life.  
“Really, you’re sorry?” she took a breath and Shikamaru prepared for the onslaught he knew was coming. “You knew that I was still upset over the way Kankuro left us, and then, you, you go and do the same damn thing! After you got me to ca-”  
“I didn’t have a choice! Damn it woman, I had an order-”  
“You had a choice! You could have stayed and actually gotten the treatment you needed. The one time you weren’t a lazy bastard! But no, you choose to leave!” He could practically see the vein in her forehead popping out in a cartoonish fashion, all that was missing was the steam fuming out her ears.   
“If I stayed then your brother would be dead right now!” There was silence, Shikamaru had slammed his eyes shut and was currently pinching the bridge of his nose, he could feel blood pounding in his ears as his heart rate increased with the tone of the argument. When he opened his eyes again he was no longer facing an angry hurricane of a woman, but a frightened girl, her teal eyes stared back at him with the walls now broken down around her.  
“What?” Shikamaru took a deep breath and leaned against the barn.  
“After I left we were stationed at the front lines.” He began to explain, “There wasn’t much fighting in that area at the time, we were mostly rebuilding the station so that fighting could resume there. I was out getting a smoke with my ‘damn lighter’ when I spotted your brother out in no-man’s-land. A couple of other guys spotted him too and he was close enough so we went and grabbed him, totally against protocol, not that it matters. He didn’t have any dog tags or identification. Protocol said to take him as a POW. If you didn’t know, the POW camps are almost as bad as hospitals, he would have caught something with the injuries he had. And protocol had clearly been thrown out the window at that point.”  
“Injuries?! He just told us he was just stuck behind enemy lines!”   
“Yeah well, he lied. I told my captain who he was and we took him to the medical tent and once he woke up he was able to tell us everything that happened to him.” Temari nodded, processing all that she’d been told.  
“But how did you know it was him? I mean, I know I told you about him but how did you know it was him?” Shikamaru blushed now, his mask of boredom couldn’t hide the embarrassment as he pulled the wrinkled, folded up picture from his pocket.   
“I had this. He looked too much like your father for it to be anyone else.” He showed her the picture she thought she’d lost and noticed her confusion. He could almost see her question of just how he got that picture form on her lips, “If fell out when we talked the night before I left and I just… kept it.” He shrugged, trying to act as if he wasn’t slightly embarrassed to admit that he’d kept the picture as a memento of the girl that saved him, his mask had cracked and now his walls were down too.   
“Why did you keep it?”  
“I… ugh this is so troublesome. I didn’t know when or if I’d ever see you again. I didn’t want to forget you.” Shikamaru had more of an explanation forming on his lips but suddenly they were occupied. Temari had once again closed the distance between them and kissed him. Only this time it wasn’t a thank-you kiss placed innocently on his cheek. This was a different type of kiss entirely, with an equally different meaning behind it, and this was placed courageously on his still moving lips.   
Shikamaru’s hands found their way to her hips, holding her steady as he leaned down just enough to get Temari off her tip toes. Her hands gripped his shoulders as she pulled him closer. Shikamaru responded to her grip by moving one hand to her back, holding her tight against his chest. With a smooth spin Shikamaru had her pinned between the wall of the barn and his chest.  
Temari didn’t care if he felt the same strong feelings for her that she felt for him, but the fact that he kept her picture meant he must have some feelings for her. She didn’t care if he had to return home or if he was getting the wrong idea about her. Girls didn’t just go around kissing people, that was a scandal and drama that she had never wanted and hoped she wouldn’t have to deal with. Shikamaru was like no one else she’d met, of all the soldiers she’d treated, and she’d treated many, none of them had ever made her take a second glance. Shikamaru wasn’t intimidated by her, and he treated her with respect that he could only have learned from having a strong-willed mother. She’d only had soldiers who feared her or treated her like a lesser being, both equally infuriating shots at her pride. He was different from the other soldiers, he wasn’t like the teenagers eager to prove their bravery as they blindly followed the trails of propaganda that had them fighting in the trenches before they even knew what the war was actually about. He knew exactly what was going on, but loyalty to his friends had brought him to the trenches. It was that loyalty that saved his life, and Kankuro’s.  
Shikamaru didn’t know what she was thinking, she was like no other girl he’d met. What type of girl kissed a man she barely knew like that, but he knew the answer. A troublesome woman. A woman who knew what she wanted and took it, a woman like his mother. And he finally understood why his father had married his mother. The scary woman that had raised him had a gentle side, though Shikamaru rarely saw it. And just like his mother Temari had a soft side, he was seeing it now, a side he was sure neither Kankuro nor Garra actively knew of. He understood now, what his father had said when he’d asked why Shikaku married a woman like his mother. He’d said that as scary as she was, sometimes she’d smile, and that was enough to make it worth the trouble she caused him. Just like his mother, Temari’s smile made all the trouble he’d gone through worth it. Hell, he’d do it all again, for once he didn’t feel the nagging inclination to be lazy.   
The kissed continued, neither one of them exactly sure where it would lead. Neither of them really cared. They stood there together, their clothing soaking up the moonlight that shone down on them like a spotlight. For the first time since she’d returned home Temari felt that everything was right, it felt like home again. She could tell herself that her family would recover from what the war had put them through. She was sure it was the return of Kankuro, the runaway sibling, that caused this, but she couldn’t deny the sense that the man pressed against her was a bigger part of her newfound hope, not that she’d ever admit it.


	10. Epologue: All He Would Ever Need

FIVE YEARS LATER

The years since Temari and Shikamaru reunited slipped by quickly, flashes of the years played through Shikamaru’s mind as he took his place next to the wooden podium that held a bible worn by years of reverent hands leafing through its pages. Many of the images that flickered though his mind were happy, the secluded picnics on the edge of the siblings’ vast property, getting caught in the forest during a thunder storm when she’d come up to visit his parents. The memories like that made up the majority, the few that weren’t only helped to solidify Shikamaru’s decision. When they’d argued about where they’d live, or the misunderstandings caused by Naruto and Kiba’s drunken antics on the night the war ended. They’d lasted through that and much more. It was the one thing that kept his feet planted before the alter.   
He pulled at the collar of his tux, uncomfortable in the restraining fabric. His eyes caught those of Temari’s younger brother, Garra, who was seated in the front row. The message in the pale blue-green eyes was easy to read. Garra in particular had been slow to welcome Shikamaru, not because of any prejudice but just because of the way he was. Trusting didn’t come easily to the youngest sibling. Kankuro had jokingly threatened him should Shikamaru leave Temari at the altar, but Shikamaru had no desire to run from Temari.  
Naruto and Choji stood beside him, he could hear their quiet chuckling in his ear. They seemed to be enjoying the sight of their normally bored friend sweating over something.   
“Don’t worry Shikamaru, we won’t let you bolt.” Choji was the best man for a reason and his ability to reassure the few insecurities Shikamaru had was that reason.   
“Yeah, the worst that can happen now is her standing you up.” The sound of Shikamaru’s hand smacking the back of Naruto’s head echoed through the hall, the blond rubbed the bump forming as he felt the full pressure of the glares that were sent his way.  
The dress was formal, too formal for Temari’s taste but she’d be damned if she let Shikamaru his way. The lazy man waiting for her had pleaded with her to just go to Las Vegas and forget the event. Now she was thinking maybe she should have let him win that argument.   
Temari’s hair was down, free from any braids or hair ties, and had grown long enough to brush the middle of her back. The dress she wore was her something borrowed, the dress her mother had worn, with the same lace details that she had seen in their wedding picture for years. Shikamaru had given her a blue pendant necklace, her something blue, which was a near perfect match to flowers they’d chosen for decoration. Her something old was a pair of earing from her soon-to-be mother-in-law, the diamonds were the most expensive thing she’d ever worn, and it was just an accessory. And her something new had been an early gift from her brothers, the cord anklet was hidden by the bottom of the dress but she could feel the charms dangling from it, one for each member of her family, and one extra for Shikamaru.   
Her heart went into overdrive when she saw Kankuro in the mirror, he was here to walk her down the aisle. She took his arm, using his support in the heels that she was still not used to, as they walked to the center of the church, where the wedding was being held.   
She let out a sigh of relief when she was Shikamaru standing by the altar, though she did wonder why Naruto was holding his head like he’d been hit. Shikamaru hadn’t seen her yet but she had an unobstructed view of him. His dark hair was pulled into his usual style but his attire was anything but usual. He looked good in a tux, though she could tell he was just as uncomfortable in his suit as she was in her dress.   
The music started and all eyes shifted to her, she kept her eyes on Shikamaru. It was the one thing that kept her balanced. She saw his eyes widen, taking her in. He’d seen picture of the dress from her parent’s wedding but this was different. This was Temari wearing the dress. This was Temari wearing a wedding dress and waking towards Shikamaru.   
She was beautiful, she always was but this was on a different level, a type of beauty he’d hope to see in the future.   
The walk was dragging on but all too soon she stood at the altar, her brother handing her off to Shikamaru, facing him as the priest began. She didn’t hear the words, not consciously, just using memory to speak at the right times with the right words. Shikamaru was in the same type of daze. The daze was broken with the priest’s final words.  
“I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss your bride.” Shikamaru didn’t need another word, his hands were on her waist as hers held onto his shoulders. Nothing in the world existed once their lips collided. The sweet, soft taste of her lips on his was more than enough for Shikamaru.


	11. ATTENTION

I am going to make an attempt at revising and expanding on this story, including expanding on the other characters and couples beyond just Shikatema. I'm also starting to re-watch the entirety of Naruto (since I never really watched the whole thing all the way through, and I really haven't seen the ending at all). I'm super open to suggestion of what to do with this, I hope I can make it even better and expand the story quite a bit. Just comment on this if you have suggestions or something of the like.

btw the couples I feel comfortable portraying are Nejiten and Shikatema. I'm not quite happy with the way I've written SasuSaku, NaruHIna in the past but I'm hoping this will be better (i haven't written Naruto fanficition in a while) and hopefully I will have someone to beta for me. I think I'd like to include InoSai and ChouKarui plus other characters in the show.


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